


Necessaries of Life

by Gehayi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Needful Things - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Brooms, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Flying, Gen, Magic, Temptation, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6891172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/pseuds/Gehayi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leland Gaunt--under any name--is very, very good at finding items that people will give their hearts and souls to possess. Now it's time to sell one to Harry Potter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Necessaries of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FernWithy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FernWithy/gifts).



> During a review of some of Stephen King's work, including _Needful Things_ , FernWithy said: 
> 
> _(I am now trying to imagine what Gaunt would sell Harry. Something of his dad's? Or, given Gaunt, something that he claims may well be from the Potter family, but he can't guarantee it... maybe a portrait or a wizarding photo, and the resemblance is remarkable, wouldn't you say? And Harry really wouldn't be a hard sell.)_
> 
> I thought about that--what WOULD Gaunt sell Harry?--and started scribbling some comment fic. This is the result.

"You know, Mr. Potter," said Diomedes Schlimme with a very hopeful smile, "I think I just might have something that might interest you." He reached behind the counter and pulled out a broom.

"A Nimbus 1600," Harry murmured. Not the finest broom nowadays, of course, Firebolts were infinitely better, but still there was something compelling about it. As he stared at it, he could almost smell the scent of magically clipped grass, feel the wind in his face, and hear the shouts of people cheering him on, calling his name...

_"Come on, Potter! Grab the Snitch!"_

The voice was friendly, even laughing, which was baffling. Harry was sure he'd never heard this person before. 

He looked down and, with no surprise, discovered that he was flying over Hogwarts' Quidditch pitch. He also found that he could see perfectly, as if he had the eyes of a falcon, for he had no trouble discerning the shortish blond fellow who had been shouting--or the faint trace of exasperation and worry marring his features.

"I think that you're making one of our prefects a bit impatient, James," whispered someone that Harry knew--absolutely _knew_ \--could not be anywhere in the real world, much less beside him in midair. "Frank likes a good Quidditch match as much as anyone, but you know how testy he gets when he's got a date with Alice on game days. And you've missed three opportunities to catch the Snitch already."

He turned on the broom and gazed into gray eyes that had yet to dream of a decade in Azkaban. "Sirius?! What are you doing here?"

"Merlin's manky beard, what do Beaters _usually_ do during a Quidditch match? Did that Bludger I missed hit you in the head?"

And then suddenly the Snitch was spinning lazily in the air before him, inches away from his eyes. He snatched at it--and it dove for the ground.

He didn't even think. He simply swooped after it perilously fast and with flawless control. A fragment of him was howling that no one, no one could fly like that; the rest of him knew that, for this Quidditch player, this was Tuesday.

When he reached the bottom curve of the swoop, he extended a long, thin right arm and, without looking, plucked the Snitch from the air, and held it aloft.

"Game over!" he heard McGonagall call out. "Potter has the Snitch! Game over!"

Still gripping the Snitch, he flew in a wide arc around the pitch, spiraling in close, closer, closest--his eyes and ears picking out the faces and voices of friends (far, far more than just Remus and Peter, who were sitting together and looking quite enormously satisfied at the outcome of the match)--until he landed in front of Lily Evans and gently placed the Snitch into one soft, half-open hand. Harry thought he heard his voice--but it couldn't be his voice, could it?--murmuring something about a golden gift...

And then he was back in London, in this odd little shop he'd chosen to visit after work, Necessaries of Life, and Mr. Schlimme was peering at him with deep concern shining in his bright blue eyes. "Are you all right, Mr. Potter? You have been staring at the broom for some time."

"I..." Harry made an effort to pull himself together. "I'm fine." The next words almost tore themselves from his throat. "Did this once belong to a Hogwarts student?"

"How perceptive of you," Mr. Schlimme said, nodding. "Indeed it did--to one of its Quidditch stars, or so it's rumored."

"Which one?" Harry demanded, his mouth so dry it felt as if it had been filled with sandpiper.

An expression of pained embarrassment swept across Mr. Schlimme's face. "I'm very sorry, but I don't recall. I'm afraid that age is taking its toll on me. It was similar to yours, as I recall. Pinter...Penner...something like that." He frowned. "He--I'm almost certain it was a he--was rumored to be brilliant at Transfiguration and Divination. Something of a Seer, though that's not usually a skill that appears in adolescents."

"A Seer?" Harry echoed, wracking his brains to think if he'd ever once heard anyone refer to James Potter as such a thing. He was almost sure he hadn't...but what if he'd forgotten? What if James had been and everyone else had just assumed that James' son must know such a basic fact? It wouldn't be the first time.

Mr. Schlimme nodded. "Yes, but I'm not sure that's true. You see, there's supposed to be something special about this broom. According to what I've heard--and I'm quite certain it's false--the broom is supposed to show visions to its owner. Quidditch matches that the original owner played in, apparently, so that he could replay the games at his leisure and learn from his mistakes. But I've tested it repeatedly, and I've found no such spell. For such a spell to evade me after all these years--well. The person casting it would have to be a genius."

Harry thought of the Marauders and of the three youngest Animagi in the world. "Yeah," he said, his voice hollow. "That's...that's not likely, is it?" 

"I fear not," Mr. Schlimme replied, sorrow filling not only his eyes but his expression. "Which is a pity. Something with such a rare spell on it would be a thing of beauty, don't you agree?"

Harry felt as if he could barely speak above a whisper. "It would be. It is." 

"'Is'?" Mr. Schlimme gave him a sharp glance. "Mr. Potter, are you saying that you find something...unique...in this item?"

Knowing that he was setting himself up to be vastly overcharged made no difference. Even if Mr. Schlimme charged him everything he owned...He closed his eyes, seeing again a cloudless sky that was blue to the point of pain, hearing the voices of friends he'd never known James had had, as well as the voice of his own godfather, a man who'd been as close to James as a brother, and feeling the touch of his mother's hand--something he could never recall feeling before--as James had given her the Snitch.

That wasn't simply rare; it was priceless. Whatever Mr. Schlimme wanted would be worth it. 

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "I do. I-I've never run into a broom like this before."

Mr. Schlimme gazed at him thoughtfully, tapping his chin with one astoundingly long finger. "There are some spells that can only be triggered by certain people. Those of similar talent or temperament, perhaps? Some talents generally escape notice until later in life...well, it's of no importance. What matters is that you want the broom."

Harry couldn't speak. Instead, he nodded, pulled a pouch of Galleons, Sickles and Knuts from his robes, and opened it.

Scrutinizing him carefully for a moment, Mr. Schlimme finally nodded. "Well, Mr. Potter, what would you say to...oh, five Galleons?"

Five hundred thousand Galleons would have been more logical. Harry gaped at Mr. Schlimme, unable to make the remotest sense of this. Evidently Mr. Schlimme understood, for he sighed and then shook his head.

"Mr. Potter. You are the one person who has managed to awaken something special in this broom. Now, I _could_ charge you the very earth for it; I'm a businessman and, I fancy, a good one. But...I also believe in giving people what they need. There are so _many_ people in this world who are crying out for things that they not only long for but that are, for them, necessities." 

He paused, looking a trifle embarrassed, but continued. "A wise man once said that if you have but one coin left, you should buy not bread for your stomach but hyacinths for your soul. Whenever I see that I am in a position to, shall we say, provide hyacinths, I endeavor to ensure that the person buying them does not have to part with their last coin. I know that many businesspeople would find this unwise, but I know what it is to yearn for something I've been told is unattainable." He smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. "So, in my own eccentric fashion, I try to help." 

Harry, dumbstruck by such generosity, felt his eyes fill with tears. There hadn't been anyone like this in his life since...well, since his sixth year at Hogwarts.

He dug into the pouch, his fingers shaking so badly he could scarcely grasp anything, and pulled out a fistful of coins.

"Just five Galleons, Mr. Potter," Mr. Schlimme said with a shade of reproof. "I've already mentioned that I don't like overcharging for items."

Trembling, Harry counted out five Galleons, placed them on the counter, slid them across to Mr. Schlimme and then shoved the rest of the coins back into the pouch. 

"That," Mr. Schlimme murmured, retrieving the coins and ringing them up with an antique brass cash register, "will do nicely. There's just one more thing."

 _I knew it,_ Harry thought, his hopes plummeting. _I knew I couldn't get a Nimbus 1600 that cheap, especially with that spell on it. The five Galleons is some kind of down payment or opening bid or something. It's just my luck._

"There is a second half of the payment due...though I suppose you'll think it foolish."

 _Here it comes,_ Harry thought, feeling as if he was drowning in gloom.

"In my youth," Mr. Schlimme said with a kind of bashful pride, "I used to be quite the trickster. Of course, I don't get to do that much nowadays, but every once in a while I find someone who truly _deserves_ to have a trick played on them, and then I simply cannot resist. And recently I found such a man in Paphnutius Gump."

Harry frowned. He knew Gump dimly, a rabbity man with a twitchy nose who worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts division. An annoying fellow, but hardly the worst person he'd ever known. He thought of saying as much, but then thought better of it. He didn't want to say or do anything that would make Mr. Schlimme upset. Mr. Schlimme might think better of selling that miraculous broom to him, and then where would he be?

And Ginny wouldn't understand if he spent hundreds of thousands to convince Mr. Schlimme that he needed the broom more than anything. She loved Quidditch--well, how could she not?--but she'd hated magical artifacts for decades. She wouldn't see that he _had_ to have this broom, that it contained memories he'd never dreamt existed, that it made so many things feel reassuringly right.

A harmless prank seemed like a good alternative to an argument with Ginny, the disappearance of a sizeable chunk of his bank account, the probable loss of the Nimbus, and the anger of Mr. Schlimme.

"What do I have to do?" he asked hesitantly.

Mr. Schlimme grinned, and for a moment, Harry cringed. Then he told himself not to be silly. Mr. Schlimme couldn't help it if his open-lipped grins were disturbing. It wasn't his fault. 

"Do?" Mr. Schlimme said, the grin fading so fast that Harry wondered if he'd imagined it. It was the Nimbus, obviously. He was going to be nervous until the Nimbus was properly his--and who could blame him? "Well, I'll tell you what arrangements I'd like you to make when the time comes. But right now, Mr. Potter, all you have to do is shake my hand."

Harry did so, doing his best to conceal his disgust. The hand was leathery and hot, and those weirdly long fingers felt almost like talons. When Mr. Schlimme released his hand, he felt a shameful but intense urge to wipe it off with a magical cleaning elixir. And that was no way to treat someone who had done so much to help him. Who'd actually given his father back to him, in a way.

Thank Merlin for Mr. Schlimme.

Mr. Schlimme wrapped up the broom by hand, whistling a jaunty tune as he did so.

"It's a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Potter," he said, his elderly face all but aglow with happiness as he handed the broom to Harry. "You know, I believe that we are going to be the best of friends."

Harry, clutching the broom to him as if it were a loved one, silently agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> NAMES
> 
> Because I couldn't resist, Leland Gaunt's name effectively announces what he's doing. "Diomedes" comes from Greek Διος (Dios) meaning "of Zeus" and μηδομαι (medomai) meaning "to think, to plan". So "the thinking or planning of the king of the gods." And Schlimme is German for "bad" or "evil." Depending on whether it's modifying Dios or medomai, the name means "the plan of evil Zeus"--that is, a king of a spiritual realm, but not a divine king, not by a long shot--or "the evil plan of Zeus"--that is, Schlimme's plan is evil, but Schlimme is either claiming to be equal to/the same as a divine king or is claiming that his plan is part of a larger divine one just as wicked as his own.
> 
> [Paphnutius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paphnutius_of_Thebes) is the name of a saint and a student of St. Anthony the Great. There's no actual reason for the name, save that it sounds like the sort of classical name that someone might give a wizard child.
> 
> THE BROOM
> 
> The broom that Harry is willing to give anything to possess is, in fact, a decrepit Shooting Star (very slow and jerky--Ron's Shooting Star was often outstripped by passing butterflies--and generally only used by children learning to fly), whose handle is half-devoured by woodworm and whose bristles are damp and black with mold.
> 
> THE TITLE
> 
> "Necessaries" is an odd word. It can refer to:
> 
> 1) things that people need to survive, such as food and warmth (which is definitely how Gaunt's customers view the items they buy...at first);  
> 2) small items required for a particular journey or purpose (which is how Gaunt would see them); and  
> 3) in the singular, an old-fashioned euphemism for shit (as in "doing the necessary" or "going to the necessary"). Gaunt's shop name (at least this time around) _proclaims_ that the items are worthless...and no one notices.


End file.
